


The Curse of April

by WakeUpDreaming



Category: Scorpion (TV 2014)
Genre: Babies, Childhood, F/M, Feelings, Flashbacks, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-02-29 18:36:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18783847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WakeUpDreaming/pseuds/WakeUpDreaming
Summary: Toby has to tell her. She has to understand April.





	The Curse of April

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ScribeShan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScribeShan/gifts).



> This was supposed to be a long, well written fic with character vignettes and foreshadowing/thematic elements. Instead, it is 2,500 words of a poorly drawn "you tried" star. This was for Shan that I started writing two years ago and it never happened the way I wanted it to, but also I hope this is an acceptable apology for me not doing anywhere near as much as I'd hoped with this fic.

April 2018, Age 35

It feels wrong for Toby’s home to feel grey and sad, and Happy feels a bit of dread wash over her as she steps through the door. “Toby?” she calls. “You in here?” There’s no response.

The dread growing, Happy walks into Toby’s bedroom. “Doc?” she asks, hesitant as she steps past his dresser. “Doc, where are you?”

And that’s when she catches sight of the lump in the bed in front of her, still and grey and easily mistaken for blankets only, if it wasn’t for Toby’s hair toward the top of the bed.

“Toby?”

That’s when his eyes start to open, hazel eyes bleary and sad. “Oh.”

She freezes, unsure of how to respond to this person so unlike Toby. “Are you okay?”

He looks up at her, miserable. “I want to say yes,” he begins, “but no.”

She sits next to him, hesitant. “Want to talk about it?”

He shrugs. “I don’t want to,” he says, “but I should.”

“Look at you, shrinking yourself.” She’s trying to smile, be positive, but this is hurting her more than she can explain. “Toby, what’s going on?”

He doesn’t look at her when he says, “I almost called him.”

“Who?”

Toby holds up his phone, the name Bruno on the screen. But nothing suggests he’s made the call.

“Oh.”

“I’m so sorry, Happy,” he chokes out. “I didn’t call, but that doesn’t matter.” He squeezes his eyes shut, looking both ashamed and shattered. “I almost broke the promise.”

Two years ago, she would have been livid. Two years ago, she might have walked out. Two years ago, she didn’t understand him like this. Today, she knows him. He’s worked hard to get where he is, and a near backslide is not something to take lightly. “But you didn’t.”

He looks at her.

She kicks off her boots and throws her jacket somewhere in his bedroom, then climbs next to him in bed. “Look,” she says, because blunt is the only way she knows how to do this, “you didn’t. You could have, but you didn’t.” She pulls at his shoulder until he rolls over, looking up at her like a kicked puppy. “It’s okay, Toby. You’re okay.”

She snuggles down next to him and pulls him close, trying to figure out how to help him. She’s never seen him this devastated before, though she’s sure it’s happened. She’s sure she’s done it to him.

They sit there in silence, Toby face down against her shoulder, unmoving, as she rubs his back trying to figure out the best way to not be the emotional brick wall that comes so easily to her.

“Happy?” he mumbles into her neck. “How come everything bad happens to me in April?”

She just wraps her arms around him, unsure of how to respond to him. “I don’t know.”

He sits up, eyes damp, looking broken. “No, Happy, you don’t get it,” he insists, and she starts to realize this is more than just some reaction to wanting to call his bookie.

“I don’t,” Happy admits after some time. And then, “but, please. Help me understand.”

Toby takes a shaky breath, like he’s steadying himself or preparing for something he wasn’t expecting. “Happy, there’s a lot I haven’t told you.”

“You know I understand that.” She can only begin to think of all the things she’s kept close to her chest throughout her life.

“But I should,” he says quietly. “Happy, I should tell you.”

“You don’t have to.” But there’s something in Toby’s eyes and Happy understands: he has to.

~

April 1993, age 10

He yawns as he opens the door to the house, hoping to see his mother happily drawing or painting. He’ll settle for “upright.”

“Mom?” he says, dropping his backpack. “Mom, they said I’m on track to graduate next year. I’ll be applying to colleges soon!”

There’s no answer.

“Mom?”

Toby’s mother is on the ground, a bottle of vodka on the floor beside her, with just the tiniest bit left inside. He rushes to her, checking her pulse, checking for breath. He turns her on the side. He knows what could happen if she vomits right now. She’ll choke to death.

“Mom,” he says, and he’s begging her to wake up, to respond, something. “Mom, please!”

Toby’s hands are shaking as he rushes to the phone. Dialing nine one one, he looks over to his mother again, hoping he’ll see something.

“Nine one one, what is your emergency?”

“Please help, I think my mom drank too much today.” He rattles off his address and realizes this is the first time he’s had to make this phone call, that usually his dad is here to do this part.

He babbles through the rest of the phone call, hoping he’ll be better at this when it’s not his mom needing medical attention.

“And we’re going to stay on the line with you,” they lady on the other line says. Toby thinks her name is Andie, but he’s not sure. He’s not paying attention to her. He’s paying attention to the way his mom is just barely starting to breathe after a few more compressions.

Andie keeps asking him questions about school, but when he asks her questions about the medical aspects she won’t answer.

“No, I’m going to school for this,” he insists. “In a year. I’m going to Harvard.”

“That’s wonderful, sweetie,” says Andie. “You want to go to Harvard when you grow up?”

“No, I’m going to Harvard,” Toby replies. “I’m going next year.” But she doesn’t seem to get it.

The EMTs get there, probably with less experience or knowledge than Toby has at ten, but they make him stand back and watch as they try to get his mother breathing easy again. They can’t – they have to pull her onto a stretcher.

Toby follows her into the driveway, where he finds his father. He looks bemused.

“Tobias?” he mumbles. “What’s going on here?”

“Did you even get home last night?” Toby asks.

“Had – had a job,” he replies. “But don’t worry! I came back with more than I left with.”

Toby feels the standard sick feeling in his stomach – something awful and thick, like that time he got the stomach bug when he was four.

“What’s up with your mom?” he asks.

Toby shrugs. “She drank too much.”

His dad’s face falls. “Not again.” He talks to the EMTs and walks into the ambulance.

Nobody even takes a second look at Toby.

~

April 1997, age 14

“We’re what?”

“Going to a casino.” His father claps Toby on the shoulder. “You’re going to learn what it’s like to gamble, like a real man.”

“I don’t think I’m allowed into casinos,” Toby says, hesitant.

“Nonsense,” he father says, clapping him on the shoulder. “Show that fancy med school ID and they’ll let you in. Plus,” he grins, and it’s swimming with something other than just joy, “you’re with me.”

Two hours later, Toby’s won three hundred dollars just by watching other people do stupid things in poker. “Dad, look what I –”

“Good, I need that.” He has a frenzied look in his eyes. Toby doesn’t even know if he’s looking at him or past him. “Gotta make up – I lost some money.”

“Some.”

“Some,” he replies.

An hour after that, they have to hitchhike home after their car runs out of gas, and they’re broke.

~

April 2017, age 34

His stories continue, broken, exhausted memories of times he drained Amy’s bank account, of days when he slept in a shopping cart because he got kicked out of homeless shelters. Happy listens through years of Toby’s life, hundreds of dollars lost, loves that left him. He’s broken. He’s miserable.

But he’s here.

“And then two years ago,” Toby curls up on himself. Happy watches him as he dives back into the memory, and she pulls him close, wrapping the blanket around him. He seems fragile, broken. Scared. “Happy, I can’t get any of that out of my mind. I still can’t. After all we’ve been through, after getting married, I still can’t –” He closes his eyes, looking pained and miserable. “I can’t get over any of that.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, carding her fingertips through his hair. She doesn’t want his forgiveness, doesn’t want him hurting more than he is. But she wants him to know – she’s still so sorry she never told him.

And that’s when she gets the most life out of him she’s seen all day. “What?”

“Do you mean – when I told you I was married?” she asks.

Toby blinks at her. “I was kidnapped,” he replies. “Hap, I love you, and that devastated me, but we fixed it. It’s better.”

And then it hits her – the counting, the nightmares he’s tried to hide, the numbers he scrawls on papers when he’s stressed out. She does the math. “It’s the hours since you were kidnapped,” she nearly whispered.

Toby nods. “I can’t get over that.”

“Well,” she begins, running her hand along the side of his arm, the way she knows calms him down in his worst moments, “do you feel any better now?”

Toby’s still and quiet for some time, the way he is when the wheels are turning rapidly. “Yeah,” he decides after some time, “yeah, I do.”

Happy thinks they’re going to talk a little more, that maybe Toby will say something else, but then she hear a snore.

“Toby?”

And he’s asleep.

~

Happy wakes up later that afternoon, her jacket thrown on the floor replaced by Toby’s warm arms around her. She can’t keep a smile off her face – she’d never admit it, but taking a nap is a luxury she’s not sure she had before Toby, and she likes it.

She takes in the silence for some time, memorizing the way Toby’s chest rises and falls as he breathes, the way his fingertips twitch in his dreams, the way the sheets drape over his body. He’s the first person she’s ever felt a future with.

Happy wants this forever.

She doesn’t realize how intently she’s watching until Toby mumbles, “I can feel you looking at me.”

“Oh,” she mumbles, “sorry.” She isn’t. She smiles at him. “Hi.”

He kisses her forehead. “You’re still here.”

Happy stares at him. “Yeah,” she says, slowly, “where else would I be?”

“Thought you might have freaked out and left,” he mutters. “I’ve scared off a lot of people without telling them even half of that.”

“You don’t scare me,” Happy replies. “Come on, after all this time, I’m not going anywhere.”

He’s quiet for a moment and then, to Happy’s surprise, he starts singing. “Have I told you lately that I love you?”

“Oh, god, Toby –”

“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.”

Happy can’t keep from laughing.

“And I’d give up forever to touch you –”

“Oh, my god,” Happy groans, flopping onto her stomach and cramming a pillow over her head. “You know how much I hate the friggin’ Goo Goo Dolls.”

“Yeah, that’s why I sang it.”

She pulls the pillow off her head and blindly swings it at Toby.

“You missed,” he singsongs. She reaches out to poke at him. “And that was my butt, but okay.”

“You’re making me miss when you were asleep,” she mumbles. “I barely slept last night – that nap was the most I’ve slept in one chunk in days.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” Toby says. “You make a racket when you crash into the walls in the middle of the night.” He looks at her. “Any reason you’ve been up so much?”

She shrugs. “I have a theory.”

“Which is…?”

Happy shrugs. “For a couple of geniuses, we suck at using birth control correctly.”

He stares – one blink, two blinks, three blinks. “Come again?”

“I’m three weeks late,” Happy says, ticking it off on her fingers, “I can’t sleep, and I’ve been nauseated every morning and hurling every night.” She shrugs. “You may have knocked me up. This time for real.”

She watches the exhaustion fade from his eyes, replaced by a light she’s never seen before. “Really?” he asks. “But we – we aren’t – that’s not supposed to…” He trails off, looking confused. “We’re not supposed to be able to get pregnant the old fashioned way.”

Happy shrugs. “Sometimes it happens when you’re least expecting it.”

To her surprise, he begins to cry. “Oh, my god. I can’t believe – ” He chokes on his words. “Happy, really?”

“I was coming over here to tell you,” Happy says. “Last time I didn’t get to tell you in a particularly positive setting. I want it to be between us this time.”

“Have you taken a test?” Toby asks.

Happy shakes her head. “I figured I’d wait to do that until I talked to you.” She returns his smile. “You know, share that moment together.”

He pulls her close and kisses her. “Look at me, being wrong,” he murmurs, “the best thing in my life is happening in April. Maybe it’s not a cursed month after all.”

~

April 2019, age 36

“Happy, get in here!” Toby exclaims. “She’s trying to roll over, come – oh, never mind. She stopped.”

Happy pulls her hair until a ponytail, hoping all the spit up is washed out of it, and checks in on Grace and Toby, who are both on their tummies on Grace’s play mat.

“Were you able to roll over?” Happy asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Is that another dad bod joke?” he asks, frowning. “Because you told Cabe those jokes aren’t allowed.”

“It is not,” Happy says, sitting next to Grace on the floor. “Just asking.”

Grace begins to babble and coo when she gets a look at Happy, smacking at the floor with her tiny hands.

“Does she have spit up in her hair too, or is that – nope, that’s fuzz,” Happy says. “Why is she always covered in fuzz?”

“That blankie Cabe got for her sheds worse than you do,” Toby says.

“I don’t shed!” Happy argues.

He raises an eyebrow. “Hap, you know I love you, but you leave hair all over our bathroom sinks. And all over our child.”

“Your beard is going gray,” Happy fires back. She fights a smile at Toby’s shock.

“You didn’t.”

“I did.”

“Did you hear your mother?” Toby picks Grace up, sitting her on his belly. “She’s calling me old.”

“You are old,” Happy replies. “Watch her head.”

Toby turns his head. “Good lord, it’s like you pop out a baby and suddenly you’re the one with the MD.”

“She’s getting wobbly,” Happy defends. “I get worried.”

He sighs, beaming at her. “God, you’re such a good mom.” He looks up at Grace. “Isn’t she, munchkin?”

Grace blows a bubble, and then spits up again.

Toby sighs. “Outfit number four of the day – down for the count.” He wrinkles his nose. “And there goes my shirt.”

Happy takes Grace and changes her into another onesie, the one with the giraffes Walter thought was irrational but Paige thought was unbearably cute, and she starts to settle.

“You ready to sleep, Gracie?” Happy murmurs. “Because if you take a nap, then I take a nap. And that is a good thing. I haven’t slept in, like, a year.”

“Worth it though,” Toby says quietly. Happy turns, with Gracie on her hip, to see Toby gazing at the two of them.

“She is cute.”

Gracie blows a bubble, with the kind of smile that makes Happy’s heart melt.

“Yeah,” Happy says, kissing Gracie on the top of the head, “that too.”


End file.
